IBON filed a complaint with the Office of the
Ombudsman to hold government officials accountable for their malicious and
baseless red-tagging of so many activists, individuals and groups especially
since the creation of the so-called National Task Force to End Local Communism
and Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) in 2018.
We focused on red-tagging because this is what
the Duterte administration has been doing to IBON. Our
complaint is just a small one of many efforts to make sure that government
officials do not get away with their bad behavior. Bad behavior should be
punished – and Major General Antonio Parlade, Jr, Presidential
Communications and Operations Office (PCOO) Undersecretary Lorraine Badoy, and
National Security Adviser Hermogenes Esperon have been behaving very badly.
Gen. Parlade, Usec. Badoy and Gen. Esperon
cannot just accuse activists of terrorism with only the spectral evidence in
their minds. They cannot be allowed to use government resources for their
malicious ends.
Yet, we are also conscious that there is more
to red-tagging than mere vilification – it is the administration’s
gateway drug to more vicious persecution and even violent attacks on
activists.
Red-tagging is a prelude to illegal arrests of activists and raids
on their offices, as with the five activists in Tacloban, Leyte a few days ago
or the dozens more in Bacolod and Manila in October and November 2019. There
have already been some 3,300 illegal arrests under the Duterte administration.
Red-tagging has already been the death knell for far too many, with 293
activists already extrajudicially killed by suspected State forces.
It is easy to see red-tagging as merely the paranoid defense of an
adoring government propagandist. Or the result of small-minded militarist
thinking where every Leftist is an enemy to be neutralized. The comical claims
and farcical arguments do not make sense otherwise.
Unfortunately, the red-tagging of the Duterte administration is
much more and, clearly, just the first step of a much larger and more sinister
agenda. The NTF-ELCAC claims counterinsurgency and even peace objectives but is
really the hub of a great wheel of authoritarianism and repression.
The administration is out to stifle dissent and to put down all
protest, focusing on the most determined, most vocal, and most organized
individuals and groups in the country. Red-tagging paints activists as
terrorists to portray them as threats, and disparages activism to keep people
docile. It is creating a climate of fear and repression to intimidate all who
dare challenge its rule.
In doing so, it is also closing what little democratic space there
is in the country and defending the unjust social and economic status quo. The
reason there are so many activists in the country among non-government
organizations, students and youth, teachers, workers, farmers, fisherfolk,
indigenous peoples, migrants, women, artists, journalists, lawyers,
professionals, and elsewhere is because of widespread disillusionment with the
system.
The Duterte administration is defending wealth and power under the
guise of national security and anti-terrorism. Repression will of course not
cure social and economic distress. It will just further damage the prospects
for development and improving the lives of tens of millions of Filipinos
seeking real change for the better.
Gen. Parlade and Usec. Badoy are fond of challenging activists to
denounce so-called ‘communist-terrorists’ as if they have found an unassailable
argument for their accusations. We are sane enough to not get caught up in
their deluded fantasies. We do challenge them to prove that we are guilty of
anything. They will not be able to, because we do not do anything illegal and
have nothing to recant.
We however will continue to conspire to study the economy and,
with the organized groups they so fear, continue to advocate for the radical
reforms the Filipino people need and deserve. For a start, we defy and will
overcome the red-tagging. ###